"O ye who believe! Be steadfast witnesses for Allah in equity, and let not hatred of any people seduce you that ye deal not justly. Deal justly, that is nearer to your duty. Observe your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is Informed of what ye do." [Al-maeda ,8]

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It is good to know that at least few progressives have stood up against the military operations in FATA. We often see many fake liberals and progressives in Pakistan, who actually are sectarian and social class fascists, support this fake war on terror. It is one of the rare moments that a group educated people with some sense of justice left in them stood up against tyranny.

I would have loved to see them criticizing military’s policy of using sectarianism itself through the likes of Zaid Hamid, Faisal Raza Abidi, Sunni Ittehad Council etc to forward the war agenda or to see some blame wrongly going against capitalism but in fact it is ‘corporatism’ which should have been targeted. However, it is a great thing to know that not all progressives and liberals are fake in Pakistan.

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We, the undersigned, demand an immediate end to the ongoing military operation in the North Waziristan region of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). We expect this, the sixth military operation in FATA within the last decade, to follow the pattern set by the previous “decisive” operations which resulted in death and suffering for the people of FATA.

The current operation in North Waziristan is nothing but a sham that will only increase the suffering of the people of FATA. Those declaring “full support” for the military operation choose to ignore history (and the present) at their own peril.

While we condemn religious extremism and militancy in the strongest terms, we do not believe that the problem of religious militancy in Pakistan can be addressed through military means nor by an exclusive focus on FATA as a harbour of militancy. Our demands are as follows:

1. An immediate and unconditional halt to the ongoing military operation in NorthWaziristan and other parts of Tribal Areas.

2. We demand that the people of FATA have the right to decide what to do with the problem of militancy in their area. This process must include working-classes, peasants, women and minorities in FATA – with complete accountability, full access to independent media and without any coercion from the security establishment or militant groups.

3. Public disclosure of the names, details and any alleged militant linkages of those killed in the ongoing operation.

4. Immediate abolition of the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) and steps to integrate FATA into mainstream Pakistan by providing guarantee of fundamental rights including rights of political association and the national penal code.

For complete demands and list of people who signed the documents, please visit:

Mad troop worshipers say we need martial law to improve things. A kind reminder for them:

a) This war mess is a gift from Musharraf martial law.

b) The initial mistake of jumping into cold war was made by military and Ayub’s martial law regime and the same policy was followed by Yahya, Bhutto (A civilian martial law administrator appointed by army and trained by General Ayub) and Gen Zia.

c) 90s, despite corruption and mismanagement was much safer and better.

d) Many national institutions like SUPARCO,NESCOM, NLC (the collapsed bridge fame) etc are under direct or indirect control of army. In most countries such institutions are run by civilians. SUPARCO is a failed organization when it comes to research and development in real space sciences and astronomy. Most of the time they do some missile work and some work with Chinese companies. The reason is simple that instead of being led by top level scientists it is being run by former or serving khakis with no brain.

e) Even the biggest city of Pakistan i.e. Karachi is directly or indirectly under administrative control of occupied armed forces in the form of DHAs, military cantonments and civil cantonment areas who have to pay extortion not only to local political and land mafias but also to military mafias (in the form of absurd charges and taxes) who milk money from civil cantonment areas, put restrictions on civilian liberties and don’t do shit to improve things there.

f) Not only that, army is doing everything from running marriage halls, banks, factories and it has occupied a great deal of land and other economic resources of this country.

g) Army ,ISI and MI waste resources on spying journalists, judges and creating puppets in media (like Zaid Hamid) and politics or shutting down channels like Geo.

It shouldn’t be hard to see why we continuously see intelligence and security failures or why we are still stuck in this war on terror mess? The prime security institution was never designed to be a defender of people or constitution, it was designed by British to work as proxy rulers. Cantonment areas are a reminder of such mindset. It will be interesting to see how much area of Newyork, Shanghai, Mumbai, London or even #Moscow is controlled by army like the so called Pakistan army and air force control or occupy Karachi.

According to media reports, Sind High Court (SHC) has instructed the government to remove the name of former dictator General (R) Pervez Musharraf from the exit control list (ECL).

So, all the mess Musharraf gang created is finally paying off. Pakistan is still in ruins from his policies and will plunge into more chaos but then who cares?

Finally, ‪‎PMLN‬ surrendered as expected and didn’t prosecute the cases seriously with full intent. This is NRO2 and nothing else which was expected from political parties like ‪PPP‬ and PMLN who made deals with Occupied Armed Forces and their foreign masters to come into power.

The disappointment is more from ‪PTI‬ and ‪‎Imran Khan‬ who danced to the tune of establishment and helped them create a distraction in the form of ‪‎Geo‬.
Now, forget any kind of justice for missing persons too and they will be left for facing baton charges on the streets. No one will blame army as it is a grave sin and blasphemy to criticize an army which is at war (self-imported).

Some interesting things to note from recent events:

Military establishment especially Musharraf gang is doing everything they can to create the right kind of chaos to make grounds for his safe exit. I have been saying that they will burn the whole country, even if they have to, to protect dictator and his team, to continue his war policies and to get away from cases like missing persons case.

So far they are able to get the desired outcome from most of the things :

a) By doing Hamid Mir episode they were able to get the angry response from Geo which resulted in its shut down.

b) They used the distraction from Geo issue to do aerial strikes which triggered revenge attacks in Karachi and other places so now dialogues option is pretty much gone. It means TTP reacted as the establishment expected them to do so.

c) They were even able to marginalize anti-war parties by distracting them using issues like #Geo and that stupid issue of Shaista Lodhi show. Even PTI and Imran Khan fell for that.

d) Nawaz Sharif has no chance of stopping the establishment as he has also made deals with them to grab power. rigging in 2013 Elections of Pakistan was not possible without establishment support.

The only player which dodged the bullet is MQM and despite serious hatred for their politics and tactics, I must say they played well for their own sake.

There was a serious plan to replace Altaf Hussain and install a new leader like Ishrat ul Ibad or bring back Mustafa Kamal or even #Musharraf as Altaf was not allowing even Musharraf to share political base of Karachi which establishment needs for Musharraf.

They tried to use the recent Altaf Hussain arrest situation but the show of ground mafia power by MQM made them to change their minds as they want to replace Altaf but not at the cost of losing ground support of MQM for this war and other policies.

MQM is still with Musharraf but not at the cost of Altaf and its Musharraf who will be looking at MQM for support not the other way around as attempted by the establishment.

I hate bhair bakri (sheeple) attitude of many Muhajirs in Karachi when it comes to following Altaf or surrendering their freedom in front of him by force but it seems these are the only things which helped MQM survived the hijacking attempt by establishment and now establishment still needs MQM for this war, Musharraf and other issues.

First of all, I strongly condemn attacks on Shia Zaireens at Taftan border and attack on Karachi Airport by some militants. Now we should try to find the root causes of the mess we are in.

Instead of trying to come out of the mess, many people in Pakistan start chanting for more war and more mess when incidents like Taftan Attack or Karachi Airport attack happen. Its like asking for more fire when your house is burning.

Last time when Pakistan Army and Air force jet bombed its own civilian populations, I pointed out that those who are supporting these jet bombings shouldn’t forget about their support for more mess when some suicide attack or some other terrorist activity will follow up these bombings. Whether its a reaction of those jet bombings or some third party is merely using the situation to increase the temperature, its the bombings which provided the impetus.

Also these attacks again remind us that Pakistani security institutions are not designed to defend people.

They are designed to defend dictators like Musharraf, attack media houses, attack judiciary, bomb villages and strengthen their control over political, land and other economic resources of the country.

Serious restructuring is required to make these institutions into defenders of the country from occupied mercenary armed forces.

Recent security and intelligence failure at Karachi Airport shouldn’t be a surprise as these good for nothing institutions are busy in protecting Pervez Musharraf, hiding their asses in missing persons case, bombing villages for dollars, running over Geo and controlling more power for some interest groups.

People should also question the Uzbak and Indian weapons rhetoric. We need to know what were the security institutions doing when they were entering the area? Saying that Uzbaks were involved doesn’t undermine the failure.

Current setup like 2008 setup is just a face of democracy, main players are same. Musharraf is still largely above the law and enjoying full security and support of his juniors in the army. Zardari and Nawaz cannot change anything as they got power by making deals with the army.

Things don’t get rotten overnight. First Ayub Khan pushed Pakistan into cold war, then Yahya played his part by introducing genocide of common populations and people digested it as the victims were Bengalis not “A” class human beings of this country, then Zia exploited Mullahism to take control of more power and pushed Pakistan more into cold war and then Musharraf and his legacy Kiyani, Raheel Sharif, Pasha and Zaheer ul Islam types pushed Pakistan into more imported conflicts like this war on terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Also these martial laws resulted in setting wrong priorities for security institutions.

Agencies and federal government are saying that they created a security alert four months ago regard the possibility of such attacks. This is totally absurd. If you were planning to do new wave of jet bombings and derailing the dialogues then of-course you must be aware of the possible back lash on strategic locations.

10 terrorists made their way into a main airport and security agencies were busy in conquering Geo News or doing aerial bombings over villages. At night time police and rangers stop common citizens on daily basis just to take money out of their pockets but often we see terrorist groups end up entering high security installation without any serious resistance. This shows serious lack in training and failure of setting proper priorities.Now they will use the rhetoric of “Uzbaks” with “Indian weapons” to hide their incompetency.

We need to realize that current security setup is not designed and is not capable of defending the people, it only serves few interest groups.

Dictatorships have contributed to the failure and Musharraf tenure added new dimensions of failure by bringing more foreign conflicts at home which this current rotten setup is not capable of handling so in frustration the pawns or so called soldiers end up running over journalists, common citizens or bombing villages.

We need a serious revision of Pakistan’s security setup and we need a culture of transparency and accountability in the affairs of military establishment. We need to get rid of this legacy of failures and culture of troop worship to bring some positive change in Pakistan.

According to latest media reports, Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has suspended the licenses of Geo News, Geo Entertainment and Geo Tez. This is another attack by establishment on freedom of media and must be condemned.

If the biggest media group of Pakistan (Geo) goes down like this then forget about smaller media groups and wait for the time when establishment will exercise their patriotic totalitarian madness over blogs, news websites, websites of political parties or even their speeches. Worst part of this madness is that a political party like PTI and a leader with great potential like Imran Khan were used like a toilet paper. The establishment did it with ease. All they needed to do was to exploit the right fault lines and play cards like religion, nationalism, blasphemy or some personal differences.

Geo did bad journalism on many occasions including in 2013 elections but we need to know that media freedom also includes bad or biased journalism. Giving up freedom to satisfy some personal hatred is a sign of slave and weak mind.

People need to learn that if you don’t like something use your TV remote. use the control in your own hand instead of giving it to PEMRA or Army. . I opposed Geo for their support of Swat operation or supporting army in this war or for 2013 election coverage but on Hamid Mir issue, they rightly stood up with the victim.

I hope sanity will prevail and this attack by establishment will fail.

Update: Next day government, after pressure from local and international circles, distanced itself from the decision and termed the meeting illegal. Still Geo is not available in many parts of the countries as cable operators are under pressure from military.

Contact: Tina M. Foster, (917) 442-9580, tmf@tinafoster.com
May 13, 2014, New York, NY.
The Law Office of Tina Foster today announced that Dr. Aafia Siddiqui has filed a legal case seeking to overturn her September 23, 2010 conviction by a U.S. federal court. Though Dr. Siddiqui has always maintained her innocence and there was no physical evidence to support the charges against her, Dr. Siddiqui was convicted of attempted murder while she was being interrogated by U.S. personnel at a police station in Ghazni, Afghanistan. In documents filed today under seal in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Dr. Siddiqui argues that her conviction and sentence should be vacated because the prosecution withheld crucial evidence, and that she was denied her constitutional right to counsel.
The case argues that the U.S. government illegally withheld evidence that Dr. Siddiqui and her three small children were abducted from Karachi, Pakistan in 2003 and secretly detained, interrogated and tortured in U.S. and Pakistani custody for five years prior to her arrest in 2008. Among other evidence, exhibits filed with the case include a transcript of an audio recording in which a senior Pakistani police official, Imran Shaukat, admits to his involvement in Dr. Siddiqui’s abduction from Karachi, Pakistan in March 2003. A link to the full audio recording in Urdu/Punjabi is available at the following URL:http://www.ijnetwork.org/report/IJNetworkTape.WAV.

Dr. Siddiqui also argues that she was denied her right to counsel because the judge forced her to be represented by attorneys that were not acting in her interest. The attorneys, who were paid $2 million by the Government of Pakistan, were permitted to enter the case and manage Dr. Siddiqui’s defense over her repeated objections. Though Dr. Siddiqui informed her trial attorneys that she had been in detention from 2003-2008, they did not present the information to the judge or jury at trial.
Dr. Siddiqui is currently serving an 86-year prison sentence at a U.S. federal prison at FMC Carswell in Fort Worth, TX. She is unable to speak with the media due to prison restrictions, but is presently represented by attorneys Tina Foster and Robert Boyle, both of whom stand in solidarity with the international community in condemning Dr. Siddiqui’s unfair trial and sentence.
“The evidence presented in today’s lawsuit demonstrates not only that Dr. Siddiqui did not receive a fair trial and was wrongfully convicted, but also sheds a bright light on the violations of Dr. Siddiqui’s fundamental human rights by the governments of the United States and Pakistan,” says Foster. “Despite the grotesque torture and abuse perpetrated against Dr. Siddiqui and her children, she has never advocated violence or revenge,” Foster added, “she wishes nothing more than to return to Pakistan where she can be reunited with her children and live in peace.”